


Blueberry Pie

by LtReginaBarclay



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Deep Dish Nine, Gen, Space Teens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 01:20:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2005542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtReginaBarclay/pseuds/LtReginaBarclay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the alternate universe of Deep Dish Nine, Ziyal experiments with baking to surprise Lal on her birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blueberry Pie

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this with lirchildofworf of tumblr in mind--her loves include Ziyal, pie, and DD9. She replied with a super cute and awesome illustration to go with it, see it here! http://lirchildofworf.tumblr.com/post/91816942276/blueberry-pie-via-otherobsessions-more

“Right, I can do this,” muttered Ziyal, propping open the cookbook she’d borrowed. “Jake might be sick, but I can bake this pie even without his help.”

She hadn’t grown up in the kind of environment where one learned things like how to make desserts, and this hole in her education had continued when she moved in with her father. Dukat tried his hardest, but he was no pastry chef. When Ziyal had checked the cupboards for ingredients, she’d found they didn’t even have _cinnamon_ in the house.

So she’d counted on Jake, who was practically raised in a kitchen, to help her bake Lal her favourite pie for her birthday. But an ill-timed fever had left him confined to his bed, and Ziyal on her own to surprise her friend. Alexander was with his dad visiting the Rozhenkos, and Nog she trusted even less than herself. He might know how to juice snails and simmer grubs, but Ferenginar weather meant they had no equivalent to dry, flaky pastry in their cuisine and his family cooked traditionally at home. So she was on her own to sift the flour, measure everything with diligence, and mix the dough.

And this she accomplished with only a few mishaps—some flying flour, a little confusion over what was meant by the instructions to “cut the butter”, and some overly sticky dough resulting from adding the water all at once rather than a few tablespoons at a time.

“Your talents know no bounds Ziyal,” her father said while examining her carefully shaped ball of dough, finally ready to be chilled. “Perhaps I should have a talk with Benjamin Sisko, your pie could be a summer menu feature at Deep Dish Nine…”

Ziyal’s eyes widened in horror, her eyebrows rising to hide in her floury hair, “Dad, NO!”

“Well think about it Ziyal, you know I have plenty of influence in the city… though I’ll understand if you want to focus on your art.”

She wrapped her dough rather more hastily than strictly necessary, and hid it in the fridge to chill—sighing in relief when her father excused himself from the kitchen. Moving the dirtied mixing bowls to the sink, she moved on to the filling.

Ziyal looked more closely at the second half of the recipe, “This has to be easier; Jake said crusts are the difficult part…”

She washed the blueberries, added the cornstarch and sugar, phoned Jake to ask what “lemon zest” was, and measured out the newly purchased cinnamon. It smelled _delicious_. She brought the measuring spoon with its cinnamon dust up closer to her nose, and sniffed.

“Ziyal?!” her father came running into the kitchen at her shriek. “What happened!”

“T-tissue!” she sneezed, motioning towards them with the hand not clapped to her nose.

Her father nearly tripped over himself grabbing the box of tissues and passing her one. She blew her nose repeatedly trying to get the cinnamon out of her burning nasal passages, while Dukat got her a glass of water and considered phoning for an ambulance. “Dad, no, I’m OK! Thank you.” She accepted the glass and sipped, “I just inhaled some cinnamon.”

“This pie is turning out to be much more dangerous than I’d anticipated. Perhaps I should finish it while you rest.”

Ziyal laughed, “I’m fine! But if you want to help me finish this pie in time, I’ll be happy for your help.”

Her father was usually a man to give orders rather than take them, but he followed Ziyal’s instructions carefully and soon she was finishing the pie with a decorative crust on top. She put the pie in the oven, and left it to bake while she made a birthday card to go with it. She was still in her room finishing the art for the card’s front when she heard her father’s voice. “Ziyal? How long was it supposed to bake for?”

She ran to the kitchen to find him bent over and peering into the oven, it smelled like warm blueberries and smoke. “O no, how is it?!”

He straightened up holding the pie, “Just a little burnt crust at the edges!”

Ziyal hurried over to inspect it, and let out her held breath. “O, thank the Prophets.”

Dukat drew on every reserve of patience and love for his daughter not to mention that it was he who had noticed her burning pie, not her Bajoran gods, and smiled. “I’m sure Lal will still love it.”

She ducked under the pie and hugged her father, “Thank you for everything! I think I’ll let it cool on the way to Lal’s”

Ziyal boxed it up carefully and put it in her bicycle’s basket with the card she’d made. After managing to bake a pie, riding to Lal’s didn’t seem nearly as intimidating as it usually did. She pushed off with hardly a wobble, and made it there without even a scrape. Lal answered the knock at her door to a smiling Ziyal, who leaned down to hug her and put the still-warm pie on her lap with a cheerful “Happy Birthday!” 


End file.
